
FT MEADE 
GenCo 1 1 
















THE DOLL WEDDING 




I 




























I * 









































\ 


/ 


» 
















■ 













































































































The Bride and Groom 




THE 

DOLL WEDDING 
Being the tale of 
the Wedding of 
the Dolls of Ada 
and Vad a at the 
Old Farm House 

By Lena Miller 


H. S. Crocker Company 
Publishers ~ San Francisco 


Copyrighted, 1916 
By Lena Miller 




NOV 29 016 

©Cl. A446641 


Dedicated to 
Ada and Vada, 
Chums 


/ 


/ 


\ 

\ 


♦ 








Illustrations 

The Bride and Groom - Frontispiece ^ 
The Old Farm House - - Facing 6 ' 

The Creek ------ Facing 10 

The Pear Tree Facing 16 





















THE DOLL WEDDING 



I 

































* 





















* 























































































































J 


















’ / 










■ . 











































































ft Mil 































- 






















































THE DOLL WEDDING 



W HEN school was out on Friday 
afternoon and Auntie said she 
would take me to Uncle’s farm in the 
mountains for my vacation during 
institute week, I was a happy little 
girl, for I knew what a jolly time I 
would have gathering wild flowers and 
playing in the creek. Aunt Ruth said 



The Doll 
Wedding 


I might invite my little chum and 
schoolmate to go along, and I could 
hardly wait for morning to come to ask 
her. I arose bright and early, all smiles 
and happiness, and ran to tell her she 
might go. My little chum’s name is 
Vada and mine is Ada. Isn’t it funny 
that we should have names so near 
alike? 

Aunt Ruth dressed me in a pretty red 
dress and black slippers, red stockings, 
and fluffed my long, beautiful blond 
hair, which reached almost to my waist, 
and tied it with a big red bow. She 
almost always fixes it that way. So 
here I was, with my red sweater on my 
arm, waiting for my chum. She came 
all dressed up in her pretty brown 
dress, brown stockings and brown vel- 


[6] 



o 

c 

a 


The Old 
Farm 





vet shoes, a great big green bow in her 
hair, and a green sweater on her arm. 

“Hurrah, hurrah! Here comes Aunt 
Ellen and Uncle John with their big 
automobile.” We all rushed for our 
traps and bundles and you should have 
seen the automobile. We had so many 
goodies along. You see, we were going 
to stay a week, and Uncle Paul’s farm 
was a stock farm, so we had to take 
fruit and vegetables, butter and eggs, 
and small barrels of ginger snaps. We 
had some nice egg sandwiches, a jar of 
milk which Aunt Ruth put up for our 
lunch, three grips and so many coats 
and sweaters that we could hardly find 
room for ourselves to sit down. When 
we were ready to start, there was a 
crowd of our little friends calling out, 


The Doll 
Wedding 


[ 7 ] 


The Doll “Goodbye Ada, goodbye Aunt Ruth, 
Wedding goodbye Uncle John, goodbye Vada, 
goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. I wish we 
were going along.” 

At last we started, and, oh! what a 
beautiful morning it was. All the wild 
flowers were in bloom and the air was 
fresh and the birds were singing at the 
top of their voices. It was a lovely trip 
over the level plains to the beautiful 
San Joaquin river. We crossed a long 
bridge and then went for miles through 
the beautiful grain fields. 

At last we came to Uncle Paul’s farm, 
but we had to cross a creek first, and the 
water was so deep that our automobile 
got stuck in the sand. I had to run to 
the house and call Uncle Paul to help 
get us out. We all had to get out of 


[ 8 ] 


the machine, and Uncle Paul waded 
into the creek with his shoes and stock- 
ings on and pushed from the back, 
while Aunt Ruth was at the wheel, and 
we were out in a “jiffy.” I shall tell 
you how much fun we had in the creek 
later on. 

When we got to the farm that evening 
twilight had fallen and in the neigh- 
boring oak tree a mocking bird was 
singing. We had supper and made our 
beds on the porch which was all covered 
with beautiful red roses. When we lay 
down to sleep, it sounded so sweet to 
hear the sheep bleating in the brush 
corral on the top of the hill, and in the 
far distance we could hear faintly the 
cowbells ringing. We could not go to 
sleep for hours thinking of what we 


The Doll 
Wedding 


The Doll were going to do the next day. Then 
Wedding we began counting the stars until we 
fell asleep. 

The next morning, as the sun was 
peeping over the hill tops, we were 
awakened by the singing of the orioles 
and bee-martins. We hurried and 
dressed ourselves, and made a rush for 
the fields, which were covered with 
bluebells and sweet white forget-me- 
nots, and there were so many cowslips 
along the road we didn’t know which 
to pick first. 

The first few days we ran over the 
hills and through the fields gathering 
wild flowers. We had so many boquets 
gathered that all the glasses we could 
find were filled. Then Vada said, “Just 
think what a jolly time we could have 



Creek 
















. 






















































































sliding down the steep hill back of the 
barn, over the slippery grass, if we only 
had a sled.” I clapped my hands for 
joy and ran for Uncle John. “Oh, 
Uncle John, we want you to make us a 
sled.” So we hunted some boards, a 
hammer and a saw, and in a little 
while Uncle John had made a very good 
one. We made a rush for the hill 
where the old oaks spread their shade, 
and had sleigh-riding to our heart’s 
content. 

We asked permission to go wading in 
the creek, but were afraid to go alone, 
for Auntie had told me so many stories 
about the Indians, so we asked Aunt 
Ruth to go with us. We had great fun 
bathing and splashing in the water. 
Auntie let us take our shoes and stock - 


The Doll 
Wedding 


The Doll ings off, and we waded in with our 
Wedding clothes on. It was lots of fun. The 
plank that lay across the creek gave us 
great sport. We jumped up and down 
on it, and then jumped into the water 
and tried to swim. We would lie on 
the plank and let it float as far as the 
wire fence that was stretched across 
the creek from the pasture. We kept 
this fun up for about an hour. Then 
Aunty said, “Enough, my little girls; 
come now.” 

On our way home Auntie exclaimed, 
“Oh, my! Look, look, what’s that?” 
And there lay a big gopher snake across 
the road about fifty yards from where 
we were playing. “Oh, my! Oh, my!” 
we exclaimed, and jumped with fright. 
It lay there for a few minutes, and 


[12] 


when it saw us it hurriedly slipped on 
the other side of the road and was lost 
to our sight in the tar weeds. I guess 
it was about as much frightened as we 
were. I tell you it did not take us long 
to get home. 

* * * $ * 


I had a dear little china doll with 
pretty blue eyes and yellow hair and 
cheeks like pink roses. She had blue 
stockings and black slippers. She was 
seven inches tall and could stand all 
alone. I live over a lot of fun every 
time I look at my doll. Vada’s doll 
looked like a boy and was two inches 
taller than mine. It had short hair 


The Doll 
Wedding 


[ 13 ] 


The Doll and “googoo” eyes, and was fat and 
Wedding chunky. 

We asked Aunt Ruth if she would go 
with us once more to the creek because 
we wanted to christen our dolls. When 
the cool of the evening came around, 
we walked down the lovely lane of oak 
trees to the creek. The plank was still 
across it. We waded into the middle 
of the stream in our bare feet with our 
dresses tucked up so we would not get 
them wet, then we stood the two dolls 
on the plank and performed the cere- 
mony. I named my doll Maria White, 
and Vada named hers Charles De Gray, 
and we sprinkled water on their little 
heads. 

Then the idea came to us, why not 
have a doll wedding? We had a box of 


[14] 


doll scraps which we had brought along. 
Vada’s mamma was a milliner, so we 
had some beautiful scraps of goods and 
laces in our box. When we got back to 
the house, we got a blanket and spread 
it out on one end of the porch. The 
first thing we did was to write invi- 
tations to our uncles and aunts and to 
a neighbor friend that was visiting 
Uncle Paul. This was the invitation: 

You are invited to attend 
the wedding of my daughter 
Maria 
to 

Charles De Gray 
at 12:30 p. m. 


The Doll 
Wedding 


[15] 


The Doll Then we got out our doll scraps. 

Wedding Vada was very original and very deft in 
putting her ideas together. In a little 
while she had the prettiest little white 
duck suit made for her boy doll. She 
punched holes in the little duck coat 
and ran a blue baby ribbon through. 

Now we did not know what to do 
about Charles De Gray. He had such 
short hair and looked so much like a 
baby, so Vada said, “I will make him a 
hat,” and she made it out of a piece of 
pasteboard and covered it with gray 
silk and sewed it with the tiniest little 
stitches, and put a piece of black velvet 
ribbon around the crown. We had a 
dear little stovepipe hat for him which 
you can see for yourself in the bridal 
picture. Then we made the bride a 


[16] 



H 

•-t 

<t> 

a> 



H 

sr 

CD 





beautiful, dainty white satin dress and 
found a piece of white veiling in the 
scrap box for a bridal veil. 

We went out and gathered some wild 
white forget-me-nots and ran down to 
the pear tree in the orchard and got 
some blossoms which were just open- 
ing, and the sweet white buds looked 
just like orange blossoms. The pear 
blossoms were so white and beautiful 
that f trimmed the bottom of the dress 
with them. I made a wreath out of 
the forget-me-nots and placed it on her 
head over the veil. “Isn’t she a dar- 
ling?” said Vada. Every few minutes 
we would run to my aunties and show 
them how sweet the dolls looked. 
“Auntie, dear, look. Isn’t she a dar- 
ling and doesn’t he look sweet? Isn’t 


The Doll 
Wedding 


[ 17 ] 


The Doll 
Wedding 


this the sweetest little dress? Oh, you 
little darlings!” 

I made a pretty little pink silk sachet 
bag and put the tiniest little white 
handkerchief in it and hung it on her 
arm. In the other arm she carried a 
shower bouquet of pear blossoms which 
reached almost to the bottom of her 
dress. We made her a pink silk night 
dress for a wedding present, and the 
groom a pajama suit of pink silk for his 
present. We wrapped them up in neat 
little packages and tied them with 
white baby ribbon and laid them at the 
foot of their bridal box. Then Aunt 
Ellen gave us each a dime and we called 
them ten dollars each, and gave them 
for wedding presents also. 


[ 18 ] 


The groom was dressed in his white 
duck suit and stovepipe hat, and his 
little sox were yellow and his slippers 
black, and he wore a pear blossom 
pinned on his coat. 

As the day of the wedding dawned 
we were very busy arranging things. 
We got a box from Uncle Paul and a 
piece of wire and made an arch out of 
it. We then got a big bunch of pear 
blossoms and fastened them on the 
wire, and that made the bridal arch. 
The walk was strewn with dainty pink 
peach blossoms and wild forget-me- 
nots. It looked quite real. Aunt Ellen 
said it was just like when she got 
married. 

I found a Bible and held it in my 
hand and said, “Charles De Gray, will 


The Doll 
Wedding 


[ 19 ] 


The Doll 
Wedding 


you take Maria White for your wife?” 
And Vada said, “Yes, I will,” for him. 
Then I asked Maria, “Will you take 
Charles De Grey for your husband?” 
and Vada answered, “Yes, I will,” for 
her. Then I said, “I pronounce you 
married.” 

Auntie then turned on the phono- 
graph and played the wedding march, 
“Here Comes the Bride,” and we ran 
to the cupboard and got some rice and 
threw it on them for good luck. 

Then we sat down and ate our dinner 
and they had to look on. After we were 
through with our dinner we asked 
Uncle Paul to please take their pictures. 
You know all brides like to have their 
pictures taken, and we thought it would 
be lovely, as doll weddings don’t happen 


[20] 


very often, especially such a beautiful 
wedding; the handsome bride in her 
lovely white satin dress and the white 
forget-me-nots in her wreath drooping 
over her veil and forehead, and the 
groom looked so proud at her with his 
“googoo” eyes and with his swell silk 
hat on his head. They looked just as 
though they could walk away to the 
strains of the wedding march. We 
changed their wedding clothes for their 
going-away clothes. Maria had a trav- 
eling dress made of Scotch plaid, bright 
red and blue with tiny black and white 
and yellow stripes through it, and a 
hat to match. Charles was dressed in 
black velvet pants with white satin 
waist, and we found a piece of cream 
velvet and made him a long cape which 


The Doll 
Wedding 


The Doll 
Wedding 


reached to the ground, and with the 
stovepipe hat on his head he looked 
quite swell. 

We started for home the next morn- 
ing and took the bride and groom 
along. 


(This is a true story.) 

One week after the honeymoon, I 
am in tears — the bride is broken. 

(The End) 


[ 22 ] 






i 












S’ 




, 











































































































































t 

































































